Well hello again, long time no see?

I’ve been neglecting my site recently, only visiting to get rid of some of the spam that’s been building up. Between the new job and Modern Warfare 2, I’ve been kept pretty busy. I did manage to sneak in one gig, and one which surprised me. Let me explain.

I’ve photographed The Xylophone Race once before — they were playing at the Ironworks in Inverness sharing the bill with a few other bands — and I couldn’t help but be very impressed. It’s very rare seeing such a young group playing the kind of funk/rock hybrid, and even rarer seeing it played was well as they do. So when they asked if I could shoot a few more shots for them at the Loft in Dingwall, I jumped at the chance.

What I didn’t realize is that Dingwall isn’t really like Inverness when it comes to gigs. Where I expected reasonably sized crowd, with varying lighting and the good ol’ photo pit, I found a room barely bigger than most people’s living rooms filled with beanbags and other soft furnishing in the loft space of a local shop… Oh, and by the way, did I say it was acoustic?

That threw me big-time, and I’m blaming that for the lack of decent shots that night. The lighting was simple to say the least which although made it easy to work with, it didn’t lend itself to good gig photography conditions, and with the small space it was very difficult to move, so I landed up holding my ground nearer the back so I could get access to my gear and not get in everyones way. Unfortunate, because I really enjoyed myself that night — whilst funk rock played acoustic doesn’t sound like a good idea on paper, The Xylophone Race pulled it off, and well.

This was the first ever gig at the Loft (Above the Greenhouse), but it certainly won’t be the last.

Update — Due to the quite frankly ridiculous amount of spam I seem to be receiving for this particular post, I’m closing the comments. Apologies for any inconvenience!